Comment Re:The enshittification is proceeding apace (Score 2) 64
On the plus side, TV has hit rock bottom decades ago,
No it didn't. The last 15 years have arguably been the high point of TV.
Decades ago, let's say 30 years to 20 years. Well, 30 years ago was about the first ever show with an entire multi-season story arc plotted out in advance (Babylon 5). There were of course many missteps because literally no one had done it before and the studio had no fucking idea what to do with it. It probably took another 10 years before people finally figured out how to execute such a thing. And now they've got good at properly executing single and multi-season arcs.
For example.
That's not to say there aren't some decent shows from the 90s and 2000s. There were a lot of shows after all, but quite a lot of them feel somewhat dated. Slow moving, clunky plots, weird retconning and plot holes due to lack of proper planning.
Minor point of order good sir, B5, as good as it was, wasn't the first show with a planned multi season story arc. The first American show was Hill Street Blues (1981) and there are earlier examples from the UK including The Prisoner (technically it only counts as 1 season but the story was split into 3 distinct parts with different themes) and Doctor Who would frequently revisit previous story lines. It could also be argued that ST:TNG had a multi season story arc with Q and Picard, they definately got the hang of it with DS9.
It's a bit of a shame what happened with B5, it was originally planned for 5 seasons but WB wouldn't commit to the 5th season so JMS had to wrap it up in the 4th... so he was effectively out of ideas when they greenlit the 5th.